Review of Mobile Design Pattern Gallery | 2nd Edition

I’ve had the privilege of reviewing the first edition of Mobile Design Pattern Gallery (Early Release*) by Theresa Neil (@mobilepatterns | @oreillymedia) which was released way back in 2011, and with a lot happening in terms of UX design trends in three years, this book is long overdue. Having said that, the author has identified that of the 70 designs exhibited in the first edition, only a handful of new designs have been included, although those new inclusions are said to be quite significant.

Mobile Design Pattern Gallery by Theresa Neil (@mobilepatterns | @oreillymedia) is a book aimed at designers and developers looking to create mobile applications, and seeking some sort of visual inspiration, as well as ensuring his or her design fits within the acceptable design best practices.

I would consider this to be a sort of a cookbook-type composition, where Theresa divided the chapters into distinguishable mobile areas, starting with Navigation, Forms, Search, Charts/Graphs, Tutorials. The final chapter deals with Anti-Patterns or pit-falls many developers tend to fall into, with the appendix providing some useful resources.

Each chapter is quite graphic-intensive, showing screenshots of popular apps with some commentary from the author on the design choices. The book is extremely easy to follow, and as a developer, you can pick certain chapters that match what you are looking for, whether it would be navigation (which I believe is the design/UX element that evolves the most over time) or forms.

One thing to remember though, these are just best practices, and there are always exceptions to the design rule, so this book shouldn’t be taken verbatim. Good design is behaviour-driven, a composition of the application functional requirements and human interaction intuitiveness.

Other than that, I’m happy with the book, it does what it advertises, extremely concise and referential, which is what you look for in such of such a nature. I certainly recommend this book, especially for developers like me that likes to look at all the smorgasbord of common design elements and pick the best ones.

On a final note, I would like to see a similar book get published, that organises the chapters by type of app, such as Social Media Apps, Traveling Apps etc., sorted by the type and function of app, so you can compare and contrast designs conveniently, but hey, it’s not too much of a stretch to be able to get that sort of information myself.

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Concise: [rating=5]

Level: [rating=4]

PriorKnowledge: Aimed at seasoned mobile developers, whether it is iOS, Android or Web.